


The Path Ahead

by epiphyte



Category: W.I.T.C.H.
Genre: Adulthood, Awkwardness, Distrust, F/M, Five Years Later, Light Angst, No Sex, Reunions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-04
Updated: 2018-10-09
Packaged: 2019-06-21 13:38:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 12,837
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15558906
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/epiphyte/pseuds/epiphyte
Summary: Cedric has been living as a human on Earth, avoiding Heatherfield and the memories that it evokes. In an isolated bookstore, he finds that he and the owner share a mutual friend...





	1. One

**Author's Note:**

> I'm really not very familiar with fan fiction, so please forgive my clumsiness with the medium.

If one travelled far enough north of Heatherfield, one reached a grassy region that was neither city nor countryside. It was an excellent place to take a break and enjoy the gentle sounds of wildlife. There was a small but popular cafe that served excellent espresso, and a few scattered houses in the area whose architecture was charming. Most of the visitors who came stayed for only an hour or two, and left feeling refreshed. That was why it was so strange when locals remarked that a certain man had been standing outside the Cafe d’Arlène for a full two hours, and did not show any sign of intending to enter the cafe, or to be on his way.

The man’s name was Cedric. He was not native to the area, nor to the country, nor to the planet. He was rather good at blending in as an Earthling, and had succeeded in doing so without too many difficulties for the past year and a half. However, he had never once succeeded in convincing _himself_ that he belonged on the planet. He was the type to take things too seriously, and he found most Earthlings to be frivolous and uninteresting.

As Cedric stood outside the cafe, he glanced periodically at a little black notebook which fit in his pocket. The rest of the time, he seemed to stare off into the distance. The employees of the cafe had all been watching this intriguing behavior for the past two hours, and wanted to know what the man was up to. One of them was on his break, and he went outside to speak to him.

“Are you waiting for someone?” asked the barista.

“No, I’m not.” Cedric said.

“Do you need a ride?”

“I do not.”

The barista was perplexed.

“Why don’t you come inside and have a cup of tea?” he proposed.

Cedric looked again into the mysterious black book that he was carrying, and nodded once but did not smile. The barista led him inside.

The cafe owner, a short man with graying hair, came out from the back to greet Cedric and bring him his tea.

He set it steaming on the table.

“House blend Earl Grey.”

“Thank you,” said Cedric.

“I heard from this young man here that you don’t need a ride anywhere. Is there any other way we could provide you with assistance?”

Cedric fished the black book from his pocket and pointed at an address that was written out in careful cursive script.

“Do you know this place?” he asked.

The owner peered at the paper.

“Hmm... it should be in the area; that’s our zip code.”

“The name of the store is ‘Orchard Books,’”

“Oh!” laughed the man. “Why didn’t you say so? That’s Robert Fitzgerald, he’s a good friend of mine. Yes, it’s only a two minute drive from here. It’s more of a dirt road than a street. I didn’t even know it had a name, actually.”

Cedric wiped some grains of sugar off the table with his thumb.

“Robert Fitzgerald...”

“It’s a small neighborhood around here,” explained the owner. “Almost like a village, the way we all know each other. Robert’s bookstore is a popular destination. He gets a lot of customers from Heatherfield.”

Cedric took a sip from his teacup, and set it down carefully.

“I’m an archivist,” he said. “I work in the Midgale archives at the city center. My employer asked me to go to Orchard Books to track down a book he thinks may have migrated to Mr. Fitzgerald’s shop, but I got a bit lost on the way there.”

“You spent a long time being lost!” laughed the owner.

“If you’re referring to the time I spent outside of your cafe, I was looking at the view of the city,” said Cedric.

“Oh, you mean Heatherfield?”

“Yes.”

“It’s true, we do have a very nice view from here.”

“Yes.”

The owner smiled, and turned away to wipe down some tables the barista had been neglecting. This customer was certainly an odd one. He could not be over thirty, yet his behavior was old-fashioned. The way that he held his tea and the way that he spoke was measured and careful, and there was something melancholic in his attitude.

“I should be going,” Cedric said.

“So soon?” asked the owner.

“I enjoyed the tea,” he said simply. He put his black notebook back into his pocket and walked outside, leaving his payment on the table. The owner watched him step into his car and drive away.

“Weird guy,” said the barista.

“He was a little,” said the owner.


	2. Two

As Cedric parked his car in front of Orchard Books, he noticed that his knuckles were white. The blood rushed back into them as he loosened his grip on the steering wheel.

He had been in a human body for five years and had never quite gotten used to the quirks that came along with it. He sweated when it was hot and shivered when it was cold, and this much was easy for him to understand. More confusing were the moments when his throat suddenly felt tight, or when his stomach began to ache for no discernible reason. The way he had clenched the steering wheel so tightly without realizing it — that was surely another such example; the symptom of an emotion he could not name.

What he was feeling now, this tenseness and uncertainty, was the reprise of the emotion that had overwhelmed him as he had stared out over Heatherfield. He had not entered that city once since his most recent arrival on Earth. He had not needed to go there, and had not invented any reasons to go. But outside of the cafe, the sight of the city spread out beneath him had held him as though he were under a spell. Two hours had passed as his thoughts swirled in a painful and blurry chaos, and he hadn’t been able to find the strength to move forward or turn back. The Earl Grey from the cafe had not calmed his mind down one bit. He wanted now to find the book he had been sent for, and to go home as quickly as possible.

Cedric pulled open the door to the bookshop, which set a small bell tinkling, and stepped inside. The interior was made up of golden and orange wooden tones that looked even brighter in the late afternoon light. There were newer books in the front and older books in the back. Several themed display cases stood in the center of the store. Cedric could see how such a friendly atmosphere could make it a popular spot.

“Excuse me,” he called, and waited for an answer. Besides the faint birdsong from outside, the silence in the bookstore was complete. After a moment’s pause he stepped past a couple of the cheerful displays and a shelf lined up with stuffed animals, and made his way towards a section marked “History.”

Just as his employer had guessed, “A History of Midgale in Photographs” was sitting on the shelf under “Local History.” A sticker that read “Property of Midgale Archives” was clearly legible on the cover. Cedric wondered how Mr. Fitzgerald could have missed such an obvious indicator.

He looked up suddenly as he heard the thumping of footsteps ascending stairs. A man with a slight hunch and thick rectangular glasses emerged from a staircase that Cedric hadn’t noticed when he had entered. The man smiled broadly and tapped a finger on the handrail.

“I _did_ hear someone up here,” he said. “My hearing’s getting poor, but not so bad as to miss a customer!”

Cedric nodded politely at the unusual old man. Seeing him now, Cedric could hardly imagine a person more fit to be the owner of such a bookstore.

“Did you find what you needed?” asked Mr. Fitzgerald.

“I’m from the Midgale Archives,” said Cedric. “We received a call recently from someone who said she had spotted one of the books from our library in your shop. My employer asked me to come see if it was true.”

“And was it?” asked Mr. Fitzgerald, eyes wide.

“It was,” said Cedric, holding up the book for the man to see.

“Well I’ll be damned,” he said. “Excuse my language. Why don’t you come up to the counter so I can make a note of it? I won’t ask you to pay for your own book, of course!”

Cedric came up to the counter.

“Name?”

“Midgale Archives.”

“No, I mean yours,” said Mr. Fitzgerald.

“Oh, uh, Cedric Hoffman.”

“Cedric... Hoffman....” said the old man, as he jotted the name down on a scrappy pad of paper. “You know I met a good friend of mine because of a Cedric. It’s not a terribly common name, is it? She came to my store to buy a book, and as she was checking out she asked me if I knew anyone named Cedric. Apparently she knew a Cedric who was in the book business, and she thought I might have met him at some point. I said I hadn’t, but we got to talking, and she comes to visit me quite regularly now.”

Cedric’s heart had begun to beat very quickly.

“I used to own a bookstore,” he said.

“You did?” said Mr. Fitzgerald, his eyes widening again. “Don’t tell me it was in Heatherfield?”

“It was.”

“Was it... wait, don’t tell me... Ye Olde Books? Something like that?”

“Yes, that’s correct.

“Well, I’ll be damned!” said the old man again. “Of all the coincidences!” He turned to look Cedric directly in the eyes.

“So you know my Rebecca?”

Cedric swallowed. “Surname is Rudolph?”

“That’s the one!” shouted Mr. Fitzgerald.He picked up the receiver of the phone on his desk, and began dialing a number.

“She’ll be thrilled,” he said.

“Wait,” Cedric said, suddenly panicked.

Mr. Fitzgerald grinned, the receiver to his ear.

“Wait, please stop!” Cedric said. One of his hands reached out helplessly toward the phone. Mr Fitzgerald only raised his eyebrows with an expression of keen excitement.

“Hello, Rebecca?” said Mr. Fitzgerald. “Yes, I’m sorry to interrupt your Sunday afternoon my dear, but I have someone here in my shop you’ll definitely want to talk to. You remember the Cedric you mentioned to me before, the first time you came to the store? Well, he’s here!”

Cedric strained to make out some kind of noise on the other end of the line, not daring to breathe.

“Of course I’m not joking with you, he’s right here in front of me!” said the old man indignantly. “Rather long blonde hair... tall... wearing a long coat...” He paused for a moment, and scratched his head. “Why the normal way, through the front door I imagine. He only wanted to buy a book... Now Rebecca, I don’t see why you’re getting so upset... now wait a minute...!”

Mr. Fitzgerald’s face was looking increasingly bewildered.

“You don’t...!” he sputtered. “But I...!” After a slightly longer pause, he held out the phone to Cedric, his eyebrows furrowed. “She wants to speak with you,” he said.

Cedric swallowed, took the phone, and held it to his ear. His mouth was dry.

“Cedric?” said the voice at the other end.

“Yes,” Cedric managed to reply.

He heard a sharp intake of breath.

“I... I’m sorry,” said Cedric.

“What the _hell_ is this? What are you doing? Who... tell me who this is!”

Cedric brought his hand to his forehead. His eyes darted to Mr. Fitzgerald, who was openly staring at him, then quickly away again.

“I’m... I know this is not ideal,” he said.

“Don’t waste my time,” said Orube. “Tell me who you are and what your objective is. There’s no point in pursuing this game you’re playing.”

“Or— Rebecca, I’m not playing a game. It _is_ me. I didn’t mean to surprise you like this.“

“Cut the bullshit. How did you track me down? What do you want from me? If you don’t tell me, I will find you and make you answer myself,” said Orube. “I do not. Treat impersonators. Kindly.”

“I’m not an impersonator, and I don’t want anything from you! Please... I know you have no reason to believe me, but I’d just like to... perhaps we could meet and discuss...”

“Oh we’ll meet all right. I’m coming over right now to see who you really are.”

“Wait!” Cedric interjected before she could hang up. “Damn it Orube, will you listen to me! I’m telling you I’m not an impersonator! I only want to speak with you in person, but... but not now!” He let out his breath, and placed a hand on the counter.

“Ask me anything you want, and I’ll prove to you that I am who I say I am. Just... know that Mr. Fitzgerald is standing right beside me.”

Mr. Fitzgerald gave an uncomfortable cough, and went to move some books around on a shelf a few meters away.

There was silence on the other end of the line for a moment. Then Orube said “What were the last words you said to me?” Her voice had become very soft. Cedric hesitated.

“I told you not to be sad. I told you I regretted... that we were never close. I don’t know what else.”

There was silence on the other end of the line.

“Are you still there?”

“When can I see you?” she asked.

“I can come on Tuesday...”

“I don’t want you to come to Heatherfield; I want to meet at Orchard Books. And Tuesday’s too late.”

Cedric looked at Mr. Fitzgerald, who was making a show of rearranging a display.

“I can’t meet any earlier. Any earlier would be impossible. And I can take the day off on Tuesday.”

“Okay, then Tuesday morning, eight o’clock,” said Orube. “You’d better come.”

“I’ll be there. Will you tell Mr. Fitzgerald?”

“He lets me use the lower level when I want. We can meet there.”

“All right.”

“Okay then,”

“Rebecca,” Cedric said quickly.

“What?”

He searched for words, any words to convey a small piece of what he was feeling.

“I’m glad I got to talk to you again.”

There was another pause.

“See you on Tuesday,” she said.

The line went dead. Cedric stared at the phone in his hand, then mechanically turned to look at the wall behind the counter. Several posters were taped in a row. “Reading is for you!” read one. “I’d rather ‘bee’ reading!” said another.

Mr. Fitzgerald cleared his throat.

“Your name _is_ Cedric, isn’t it?” he said.

“What?” Cedric blinked.

“Rebecca seemed to think... well, I’m sure I don’t know what’s gone on between the two of you, but I imagine it doesn’t concern me. Rebecca’s a strong person...” Mr. Fitzgerald looked up at Cedric.

“Are you all right? Your face has gone all pale!”

Cedric’s eyes darted around the bookshop. He placed his hand back on the counter to stabilize himself.

“Well, sit down for goodness sakes!” Mr. Fitzgerald dashed nimbly behind the counter and procured a chair which he set beside Cedric. Cedric sat down.

“There’s a good man!” said Mr. Fitzgerald.

“We’d like to borrow the lower level of your bookstore on Tuesday, if that is acceptable,” said Cedric, without making eye contact.

“Oh,” said Mr. Fitzgerald, “Certainly. Yes, of course.” He looked uneasy. “That is, you’ll be wary of the customers, won’t you?”

“We’ll exercise the utmost caution,” said Cedric. He held his head in his hands, and closed his eyes.

His rest proved short, as it was only a few seconds later that the front door tinkled, and two women entered the shop. Cedric made an effort and stood up, teetering slightly.

“Goodbye,” he said.

“Are you all right?” asked Mr. Fitzgerald.

“I’m fine,” he said. “I’ll be back on Tuesday.”

He walked out of the store and into the orange-gold afternoon sunlight. His car, the bookshop, the birds that were still singing inside of the bushes by the windows, all seemed suddenly alien to him. It had been a very long time since any Earthly thing had seemed this foreign. He got into his car and began the drive home.


	3. Three

For the entirety of Monday, Cedric was sure that one of his coworkers would remark his state of constant agitation, which was abundantly clear to himself, but no one said anything to him that went beyond the usual superficial drivel. Jen raised an eyebrow when he asked for the day off on Tuesday, but she granted him the vacation without any questions.

“Enjoy your day off,” she said. “I hope you’re doing something fun.”

“Nothing remarkable,” Cedric replied.

The rest of the day seemed to pass more quickly than any work day ever had previously, and before he knew it he was packing up his things and driving back to his small apartment, then staring at the leftover soup heating up on the stove while realizing he had no appetite to eat it.

At eight thirty, he went to his bedroom. Cedric had a habit of reading before going to bed. He read books that had nothing to do with his work at the archives in order to wind down, and he tended to enjoy novels from the nineteenth century: Tolstoy, Dickens, and Verne on occasion. But tonight even his favorite books could not hold his attention. His mind was turning in circles.

He ought to prepare himself, he thought, for meeting her again, but he found himself unable to think of a single thing that could possibly make the confrontation any easier. She was bound to ask questions he would not be able to explain. The most difficult question would likely be the first one to come out of her mouth, and he would be unable to provide her with a satisfactory answer. He could only imagine things going downhill from there.

It had been so very long since he had actually _seen_ her, and so much had changed since those drawn-out days spent in the cool basement of his bookshop. He could recall their conversations from that time, and some of them in perfect detail, but the person he remembered was the Orube from five years ago. Who could say what had happened to her since then? Who could say in what ways she might have changed?

He shut the book that had served as little more than an extra weight in his lap on this particular evening, and put his glasses on his bedside table. That night he slept poorly, waking up several times. His dreams were disjointed and frantic; fractured images and the feeling of running, grasping at nothing, falling. He finally gave up all hopes of sleeping when he woke with a jolt for the fifth time that night at 4:46 AM. He spent another two and a half hours sitting at the kitchen table, unable to eat, read, or calm down. Then he took a shower and got dressed, and got in his car to begin the drive towards Heatherfield.

The morning sun illuminated the fresh spring grass that grew on either side of the road. It was early May, and it occurred to Cedric that he would have to renew his lease in another fifteen days. Like most of the humans he knew, he had a job. Like most humans, he had an apartment. Five years earlier he would have been disgusted by such a lifestyle, but now it seemed only pitiful, and slightly absurd. Just as Cedric only really knew the Orube from five years ago, Orube could only know the Cedric from five years ago; a hateful, bitter and vicious man. He had been like a rubber band pulled tight and ready to snap, and he _had_ snapped, and had been certain that he would extinguish himself in the destruction he had created. Yet somehow, he had been wrong. He wondered what Orube would make of the unusual person he had become in the time since they last met.

He had reached the small community north of Heatherfield. The Cafe d’Arlène was open and had several cars parked in its lot; he drove past it slightly more quickly than the speed limit allowed. His knuckles were white again.

Orchard Books had a closed sign in its front window, but Cedric could see the lights on inside. As he pulled into the parking lot, he made out the silhouette of Mr. Fitzgerald at the front desk. The old man turned around at the sight of Cedric standing outside, and waved a friendly hello. He stepped forward to unlock the front door.

“She’s not here yet,” he said in confidential tones as he motioned Cedric inside. “You are a little early, but I expect she’ll be here within ten minutes.”

“Has she contacted you since Sunday?” asked Cedric.

“I gave her a call Sunday evening,” said Mr. Fitzgerald. “Just to, you know, straighten out a few details...”

Cedric wondered what, if anything, Orube had revealed regarding the circumstances in which she and Cedric had come to know each other.

“I’m sorry to intrude like this,” he said.

“Oh no!” Mr. Fitzgerald waved his hand dismissively, “I’m quite happy to do whatever I can for Rebecca. And for any, er, friend of hers.”

Cedric felt a tightening in his stomach. His heart was already beating at an increased rate.

“Could you show me the downstairs?” he asked.

“Certainly,” said Mr. Fitzgerald. He led the way towards the staircase, switching on a light as he descended the stairs.

“Rebecca uses this space to practice her martial arts from time to time,” he called over his shoulder. “She won’t tell me which discipline she’s trained in, only that it’s very specialized and has some kind of foreign origins. Well, I suppose that most martial arts do...” He opened a door, switched on another light, and a well-kept basement appeared before them. There was a large open space in the center of the room, the concrete floor painted a forest green. Nearer to the walls there were neatly arranged cardboard boxes full of books and paper files. It gave the impression of being a residential basement rather than the lower level of a bookstore.

“There’s too much space here for me to use anyway, so I keep it tidy for Rebecca’s practice,” said the old man. “And there’s a bathroom over there and a little office that I use. You won’t need to come upstairs unless you want to, whenever you’re, um, done with... it.” He cleared his throat, and moved a cardboard box closer to the wall. “Well then, I expect she’ll be arriving soon, so...” He began to walk towards the staircase again, but stopped suddenly and let out an “Oh!” Cedric took a step forward to see what Mr. Fitzgerald had seen, and nearly jumped back himself.

Orube was standing completely silently in the half darkness of the stairway. She had one hand on the wall and one hand in her pocket, and she was staring directly at Cedric with a hard expression on her face.

“Rebecca!” wheezed Mr. Fitzgerald. “You nearly gave me a heart attack, why _do_ you sneak around like that? Someone’s bound to die one of these days!”

“I doubt that,” said Orube. She had not taken her gaze off of Cedric.

“Good morning, Rebecca,” said Cedric.

“Good morning,” she replied.

Mr. Fitzgerald looked from Orube to Cedric and then back again. A tense energy had flooded the space, and seemed to be increasing in intensity by the second.

“I... I suppose I’ll leave you two alone then,” said Mr. Fitzgerald. “Try not to break too many bones!” He laughed uneasily.

“I can’t guarantee that,” Orube said. She stepped through the doorway to let Mr. Fitzgerald pass by her, and waited until he shut the door behind him with a soft click.

Beneath the overhead lights, Cedric could now clearly see the details of Orube’s face. Her haircut was slightly shorter than the style she had used to wear. Wisps of hair brushed her cheekbones, and the hair on her forehead was cut straight across over her eyebrows. Her face had not changed. Her eyes were still as sharp, still as penetrating as ever. He could feel her scrutinizing him, and wished that he knew what conclusions she was reaching in her mind.

“So,” she said.

“So...” said Cedric.

“Let’s hear your story. You tell me that you’re the person I knew who called himself Cedric. I’m prepared to believe that you have studied him, because you’re at the least doing a very good impression of his appearance. But if you know as much as you seem to know about him, you’ll also know that I did not trust him even when he was alive.”

“You... had good reason not to,” Cedric said.

“Yes,” she said. “I did. We were betrayed.”

Cedric was not sure how to reply.

“I have no way to apologize for what I did,” he began.

“Which is fine, because I’m not looking for apologies,” Orube cut in. “Give me your story, and after I’ve heard it I’ll decide on what actions to take. Why don’t you start with the end of the story? What are you doing in Midgale... and as an _archivist_?”

“Could we sit down?” asked Cedric.

“The chairs are over there,” she replied, pointing to the room that Mr. Fitzgerald had indicated as his office.

Cedric turned his back on her; could feel her eyes following him. He took a wooden chair in each hand, and carried them back to the main room. He set them facing each other in the center of the open space.

First he sat down, then Orube did. He took a deep breath.

“I am living in Midgale. You’re correct, I work as an archivist. Essentially, I have adopted a human lifestyle. I’m sure that must seem strange to you, given that I spent all of my last stay on this planet trying to get back to Meridian.”

“That’s not the strangest thing to me,” said Orube.

Her arms were crossed over her chest. Cedric met her eyes briefly, but found he could not maintain his gaze without his throat tightening. He could feel an anxiety building in him from the bottom of his stomach, but forced himself to keep speaking naturally. He had to keep his composure.

“I came back to Earth after three and a half years on Metamoor,” he said. “There was civil war... I was involved in it, but only because I had no other choice. I tried many ways of escaping the planet. Finally I found a person willing to take me to Earth — one of those few people who hold the ability to travel freely between planets, perhaps you know of them?”

Orube nodded slowly.

“I paid her everything I owned... I wouldn’t need it anymore anyway... and she took me here.”

“So you came to escape the war,” said Orube. “But it couldn’t have affected the entire planet. Why didn’t you just move?”

“I... I didn’t want to be there anymore.”

“Anywhere on the planet?”

“No.”

Cedric feared that Orube was going to ask him why,but she only recrossed her legs and continued frowning.

“And you came here, and began life as an archivist...”

“They appreciated my background dealing with antiquated books.”

“And you’ve been here...”

“For a year and a half,” he said.

“Pff!” Orube scoffed. She got up out of her chair suddenly and paced to the wall, then turned back around to face Cedric. She stared at him angrily for a few seconds.

“But you’re _dead_!” she said. “I’m talking to a _dead_ man. How do you expect me to believe anything you’re saying? This is completely ridiculous.”

Cedric got up from his seat as well. Orube stood tense and livid. Her body was shaking with anger. Inexplicably, Cedric was overwhelmed with a desire to pull her close to him and hold her tightly, however impossible that was. He needed desperately to find the right words. He could feel how close he was to losing her trust completely.

If he messed up now he would lose her forever, he thought. He would live the rest of his life alone in an alien world, but _truly_ alone this time. It dawned on him that up until now he had always held the unconscious hope that he would see her again. The insufferable monotony of a human life had been animated by a secret spark unknown even to him: _one day he might meet her_. Now as she stood before him, the enormity of all his unstated desires unrolled itself as clearly as though each one were being written out in front of him. _I want to live with her. I want to make her happy. I want to tell her my past, everything about me. I want her to love me. I want her to love me!_

“Well?” Orube said, her voice raising in volume. “Don’t just look at me!”

“That day in the book,” he said, his voice somehow still steady, “You saw my body dissolve into ink. That is apparently what happened.”

“Yes,” said Orube. Her fists were clenched tightly at her sides.

“You assumed from this information that I had died. I also thought I was going to die that day. I had been severely weakened by the blast of energy that had hit me, and I was absolutely sure that I was going to finally get out of this _miserable_ pointless life. However... I woke up.”

Orube’s expression was now something other than anger. She was looking at him hard, as though searching, her lips tight.

“I felt wind around me, and I smelled a scent I had not encountered in years. However impossible it was, I told myself, I was obviously alive enough to feel and to think.”

As he spoke, the memory of his awakening came back to him vividly, and the overpowering emotion with it. This was not good.

“I found myself in Meridian,” he said. “Specifically, I found myself in an old burned out neighborhood that had suffered cruelly under Phobos’s rule. I could not find any explanation of why I was there. I was alive. I was extremely weak; I could barely walk. But as I took account of my situation and my surroundings, I realized that I also had something else. That is...” He swallowed. “I had recovered my memories. Of my childhood.”

He paused a moment, breathing in slowly. Orube was staring at him intensely, but he felt that it would be dangerous to look at her, that the only option was to persist forward.

“The area that I found myself in that day... The burned out building where I had woken up... was my father’s. I went inside,” he said, his voice shaking. “I came through where the front door had been. Everything had been destroyed, but I recognized the place I had grown up. There was a necklace on the floor that had been my mother’s... As I picked it up I remembered that— I remembered leaving her and I...”

His sentence was cut short as he realized he could not go on without his voice folding completely. The impulse to cry had come suddenly and unexpectedly. It was Orube’s presence that had destabilized him completely. He closed his eyes, and swallowed once again. A tear fell down his cheek.

“I’m sorry,” he said softly.

He heard the sound of Orube’s feet moving across the floor. He did not open his eyes, and stood quietly for a moment.

“Cedric,” she said. Her voice came from behind him. “It is you, isn’t it?”

He wiped the tears from his cheeks.

“Yes,” he murmured.

“I was hoping it was,” she said.


	4. Four

Orube and Cedric stood in silence in the basement. After a while, Cedric opened his eyes and slowly sat down in the wooden chair again, resting his head in his hands. He exhaled shakily. He felt weak and empty, and somehow confused. Orube was standing silently in that way that only she could do. It was the kind of silence that completely erased her presence. That silence was so familiar to him.

“I haven’t answered your question,” he said. “I don’t think I will be able to answer it satisfactorily. I’ve thought about it a lot of course, but I haven’t reached any conclusions.”

“You got your memory back when you woke up on Meridian,” Orube said gently. “Do you know why that happened?”

“I don’t.”

“And you found yourself near your father’s house. That can’t have been a coincidence...”

“No, I don’t think it was...” he said. “That is, I had a feeling as soon as I was properly awake, after I had thought things through a bit, that all of it was supposed to happen. The facts that I did not die, that I awoke near my father’s house, and that I regained my memories are surely all related. I just don’t know what it means. I’ve been trying to understand it these past five years.”

“What about your memories?” asked Orube. “Have they helped you understand anything?”

Cedric smiled bitterly.

“I understood that I spent my life in pure delusion. I understood that I essentially singlehandedly destroyed _every_ opportunity that was ever given to me for a better life. That became very clear to me when I recovered my memories.”

Orube was silent for a moment. Cedric stared at his palms, trying to think of what he could say. The heaviness of his past, these feelings he had never before shared with another person, seemed to be weighing him down and blocking his words. If Orube had not hated him before, surely she would now. She would hate this sickening weakness that he had not been able to expel from himself after years. A shadow of self hatred flitted in his chest.

Suddenly, Orube let out a yell. Cedric jolted in his chair.

“Yaaa!” Orube kicked the air, then slammed her foot back onto the floor, pivoting to punch twice in rapid succession. She drew her fist in, turned her body, and swung again. She held her stance for a second, then punched a final time with an equally loud and piercing cry.

Cedric stared at her, quite jarred by the sudden outburst. There was something strong and beautiful in her posture. Her body seemed to be glowing in the dim green light of the basement.

She made eye contact with him.

“Let’s go outside,” she said. She was not quite smiling, but there was warmth in her eyes. “We’ve been here long enough,”

“A- All right,” Cedric stuttered, getting up quickly.

Orube took one of the wooden chairs, and Cedric followed her lead, setting the chair he had used in Mr. Fitzgerald’s office.

She opened the door, and started up the stairs. As he followed Orube, Cedric found himself looking at the nape of her neck. Her hair was cropped close at the bottom, and looked very soft to the touch. How many times had he imagined seeing Orube again? And now she was actually in front of him, so close. Embarrassed by the ridiculous desire to reach out his hand and touch her, he turned his eyes down to look at his feet instead.

They reached the top of the stairs, entering the sunlight-filled upper level of the bookstore. Mr. Fitzgerald was at the desk helping a customer. He did not immediately notice Orube and Cedric’s presence, but turned his head in surprise as Orube passed by the counter.

“Ah, are you, er?” he said, his hand still hovering over the book he had been about to scan.

“We’re going out for a bit,” said Orube. “I’ll be back later.”

Mr. Fitzgerald seemed to be processing the meaning of this change of locale. He looked quizzically at Cedric, who nodded slightly.

“I see. Very well,” he said. He turned back to his customer and continued scanning the stack of books.

Orube opened the front door for Cedric, which he shut carefully behind them. He noticed immediately how different the atmosphere was outside from inside the basement, and thought that Orube had been right to go out. The air was gentle and lovely. Cedric could hear cicadas in the trees, and the calls of other Earth insects he could not name.

“There isn’t any light in the basement,” Orube said.

“No, there isn’t, is there,” Cedric replied. “Do you... often come to the bookstore to practice?”

“To practice my fighting? Every so often. I prefer to practice outside, but it’s more difficult in the winter. I’ve gotten weaker.”

She shoved her hands into her pockets and started walking along the side of the bookstore. Thistles and grasses grew thick against the walls.

“I haven’t been to Heatherfield once since I arrived on Earth,” said Cedric, stepping carefully over the weeds.

“Really?”

“I’ve been in Midgale this whole time. I didn’t have any particular reason to make a visit.”

“Didn’t you want to see what became of your bookstore?” asked Orube.

“Why, what became of it?”

“Nothing. It’s still there,” she said. “It’s just the same. Like you never left.”

Cedric thought he heard a hint of pain in Orube’s voice, and he looked up quickly to see her face, but she was still in front of him, and the back of her head revealed nothing regarding her emotional state. They were facing a field that stretched out behind the bookstore. From the store’s back patio there was a small footpath that wound through the grasses. Orube waited for Cedric to come by her side.

“Shall we walk?”

“All right,” said Cedric.

They started out on the path. There was barely enough space for them to walk side by side.

“Orube?” said Cedric.

“Hm?”

“Am I what you expected?”

She laughed. “I expected you to be dead.”

“Ah, yes, I suppose so...”

She turned to look at his profile. “You _are_ different. Something about you.”

“You are the same,” he said.

“No,” she said, turning away again. “You’re wrong. Maybe you didn’t know me well enough before, but I’m not like I used to be. I had to change.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well,” she said, “I couldn’t fight at all for a while. I couldn’t care about things the way I used to. I would try to do something and then lose my motivation in the middle, which had never happened to me before. So I had to find new ways to deal with myself. I got better at it eventually, but I’m still not like I used to be.”

She grabbed at the head of a thistle as they passed by it, and began tearing at the petals.

“You were depressed,” said Cedric.

“Maybe,” she said. “I don’t like using human words to describe it, but perhaps it was a human emotion after all.”

 _And your other human emotions?_ Cedric wanted to ask. _Do you still feel those as well?_

“What about you?” asked Orube. “Did the civil war change you?”

“It wasn’t the civil war that changed me,” said Cedric. “Things like that have been happening far back into Metamoorian history; there’s really nothing remarkable about this one. Now that Phobos is gone the people feel they need to bring up old grievances against each other. So there is war.”

“What about the Light of Meridian?”

“Elyon is popular among the people of course, but she does not understand them,” said Cedric. “She is only an Earth girl after all. She thinks like an Earthling, and _feels_ things like an Earthling, and that will set her apart from her people as long as she lives. She does not understand the struggles that the Galhot have gone through, so she cannot understand their war.”

He felt slightly self-conscious, having rather off-handedly stated this opinion regarding his home planet. Perhaps it was only a vestige of their previous relationship, but it felt strange to voice his feelings so openly to her. He felt as though he were doing something dangerous.

“Did you see her while you were in Meridian?” asked Orube.

“No, of course not,” he said. “She detests me.”

“Do you think she would still detest you now, after all that has happened to you?”

“Why wouldn’t she?” he said, and Orube didn’t reply.

They walked over a wooden bridge that crossed a small stream. Cedric wondered how far the path they were following went. They were moving farther and farther away from the bookstore. It felt as though they were slowly leaving civilization and entering a wild place.

“I was angry at you for a long time,” Orube said. Cedric glanced at her to see her face turned towards the ground.

“I couldn’t forgive you for what you had done,” she said. “Even now, if you asked me, I would say that what you did was unforgivable. You put yourself first and risked the lives of others. You were incredibly selfish.”

She tossed aside the denuded thistle.

“But I was angrier with myself,” she said softly. “For loving you.”

Cedric found himself unable to speak. He repeated the words in his head, trying to convince himself that he had heard her correctly.

“I’m not going to lie to you,” said Orube, sounding strangely defensive. “I don’t care. If you are alive, then I don’t have any choice. I already screwed up last time, I’m not going to screw up this time.”

“Wait,” said Cedric, hardly able to keep up with the conversation at the rate it was progressing. “How... in what way did _you_ screw up last time?”

“I was an idiot,” said Orube. “I just... kept lying to myself. I wasn’t strong enough. Or maybe I wasn’t honest enough. I don’t know!”

She looked truly unhappy.

“Orube...” Cedric said.

“I should have stopped it from happening...” she said, her voice trailing off.

Cedric waited for her to elaborate, but she did not. Her face was still turned downwards, and Cedric was not sure how torespond to this unprecedented behavior. That Orube could ever openly show this kind of emotional weakness was unthinkable. During his first months back on Metamoor, when everything had been fresh and painful, he had liked to imagine that Orube too felt something akin to the emotions that in those days inundated him day and night without respite. But his logical mind had rejected such an idea. Orube was strong. Her defenses were impenetrable. Even if he selfishly wanted her to share in his pain he knew her to be tougher than that, and there had never been any doubt in his mind that after their parting she had moved on to continue her life as a warrior. This version of Orube who was upset — who was possibly crying in front of him — in what way was he supposed to respond to her? Was he to comfort her? Was he to act as though nothing were happening?

“There is nothing,” he said slowly, “that you could have done to change my behavior. I was determined to get out at all costs. The costlier the escape was, the better in a way... I couldn’t stand being forced to live a semblance of a normal life when I had never known normal. I wanted destruction. It was what I knew.”

He kept his gaze on the path ahead of him, not ready to look at her yet.

“There have been so many times I have been grateful to have met you. When I regained my memories on Metamoor, I felt... I realized that _I_ was the one who had sabotaged my life. I had destroyed my memories through excessive transformation, and it was all because I couldn’t bear to face my past or my family, or what had become of them under Phobos’s rule. After discovering all this again after so many years, there were moments I hated myself so much I thought it would have been better if I truly had died.”

Cedric realized that they were already coming to the end of the path. Ahead he could see a dirt road and a house hidden behind some trees. The apparition of this area felt somehow unreal, as though he were seeing it in a dream.

“I thought of you frequently,” he said as their footsteps slowed. “I remembered the stories you told me of Basiliade and of your battles. You were a comfort to me...” He paused. The trees waved in the wind. “No, forget that. I don’t know why I’m saying all this.”

He had talked in order to fill up the uncomfortable silence in their conversation, but he didn’t know what he was doing. He had completely lost track of what was normal.

“Cedric,” Orube said. They had come to a complete stop, and she turned her face up to look at him. “Thank you.”

He looked at her. The light was catching her irises and turning them a very light shade of gold. “You’re welcome,” he said. “What for?”

“For being here,” she said.

With a decisive movement she turned away from the dirt road and back down the path towards the bookstore. Cedric followed behind her. In a nearby tree, a group of cicadas began to sing.


	5. Five

In the middle of lunch, Cedric’s phone buzzed against the table.

 _I want to meet with you today_ the text read.

Jen looked over the sandwich in her hands to glance at the cell phone.

“You text?”

“Hardly,” Cedric replied.

“Funny, I would have pegged you as the type to not even own a cell phone, you’re so technology averse.”

“I’m not averse.”

“Fine, inept. But in any case, I don’t think I’ve ever seen you get a text before. Do you usually turn it off at work?”

Cedric was spending his precious lunch break with Jen because she had been pestering him to do so for the past week, but already he was regretting it. His lack of sleep from the night before last had caught up with him, and he felt off-balance and strange. Just the kind of mood that made him want more than usual to avoid Jen’s pleasantries.

“I don’t particularly enjoy using cell phones, so I turn it off whenever possible,” he said. “Besides, I very rarely receive texts at all.”

The phone buzzed again.

 _Can you come to my house at 8?_ it read.

“Well I’d say that today you’re a pretty popular guy,” observed Jen. “Who is it, your girlfriend? Oh, I guess I’m not supposed to ask that. You never talk about yourself, so sometimes I get curious is all...”

Cedric chewed the last bite of his salad, set down his fork, and sighed.

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t know what?”

“I don’t know whether she is my girlfriend.”

Jen raised her eyebrows.

“You don’t _know_? Well, I mean, are you dating or not?”

“I saw her for the first time in five years yesterday,” Cedric said, not entirely sure why he was divulging this information to his superior. “We spoke at length and exchanged phone numbers, but after that she left quite suddenly. I don’t really know-”

“Wait, wait, hold on a sec,” Jen said, shaking her head slightly and holding up her hand. “You haven’t seen her for five years... but you think she _could_ be your girlfriend?”

Cedric realized that he was dangerously close to revealing his nearly complete ignorance regarding human dating customs.

“I said that I don’t _know_ ,” he said. “She told me that she loved me... or rather that she had been in love with me before. It wasn’t exactly clear from the context whether her feelings persisted.”

“And _you_ like her,” Jen said slowly.

Cedric involuntarily made a noise that was halfway between a laugh and a cough. He wiped his mouth with a napkin.

“Yes,” he said.

“Okay, then,” Jen said. “Then that settles it, right?”

“What do you mean?” Cedric asked.

“Well for one thing, _answer_ her text, and then when you meet up again just tell her how you feel. You don’t have to be dramatic about it or anything, just say ‘this is the way I’m feeling, what about you?’ And then you’ll know at least.”

Cedric looked at Jen for a moment. She knew nothing of the complexities of his relationship to Orube, and was clearly underestimating the emotional gravity of the situation. But perhaps it really could be as simple as she made it out to be...

His phone buzzed for a third time. He picked it up.

 _Please answer me before your lunch break is over_ the text said.

How could she possibly know when his lunch break was, Cedric wondered.

“So are you going to answer it?” asked Jen.

“Yes, yes!” Cedric said, annoyed. “Give me a moment.”

He searched for the button he needed to press in order to reply.

Jen got up from the table and shoved the remains of her sandwich back in her paper sack.

“Take your time,” she said with a smile, “but try and be back at your desk in five minutes. It’s almost one.”

“All right,” Cedric said, as Jen walked away. He punched at the tiny buttons.

_See... you... at... eight._

Nearly as soon as he had hit “send,” he received the reply.

_Good. I’ll serve dinner_


	6. Six

Cedric sat in his car with the engine off. The Earth insects were buzzing away in their trees again, and the sun was setting, turning the western clouds pink and gold. It was 7:18; he ought to have left three minutes ago, but by the same mysterious power that had detained him at the Café d’Arlène before the sprawling view of Heatherfield, he could not convince himself to put the key in the ignition.

His mind was replaying the events of the day before. As fraught as their meeting had been, he could hardly believe it had gone as well as it had. Orube had not slammed him against a wall or even rebuked him for his behavior, although he had been certain that she would. And though it had certainly not been his intention to do so, he had cried in front of her while overcome with the memories of his family. His family whom he had abandoned. Whom he would never see again, or ever have the chance to apologize to or be hated by.

Orube, it had not escaped his notice, had softened in her attitude towards him at the moment she had seen him cry. She had abandoned her show of distrust and had addressed him by his name for the first time that morning. Could it be that she had pitied him, and thus eased her stance? But on the other hand, that stance had not been as strong as Cedric had at first estimated. It was clear that his original evaluation of her emotional condition had not been accurate. He had presumed that her initial anger had been hard and cold, but she had proven otherwise with her puzzling show of vulnerability during their walk outside.

She had looked so beautiful in the sunlight. He had taken a pleasure in rediscovering details of her form that he had forgotten during the five years they were apart; the way her neck swept into her shoulders, the outline of her collarbones above the pale skin of her chest...

He took a deep breath, and glanced again at the clock. It was 7:20, and there were no more excuses for his delayed departure. He turned on the Earthling radio device in his car in order to drown out his thoughts as he started down the road towards Heatherfield.

Traffic was light; in spite of his late departure, Cedric found himself turning onto Orube’s street at five minutes to eight, and parking on the side of the road in front of the house that was marked with the number that Orube had given him. It was a rather large and grand house, in the same style as the others in the neighborhood. Cedric would not have expected Orube to live in such a house, though he could not say why. To examine this assumption would mean realizing again how very little he knew about Orube and her life, her preferences and ambitions. In his bookstore, the two of them had been entangled in a relentless game of deflecting attention from themselves and turning it upon the other. True honesty had seemed completely impossible given the circumstances, and yet thinking back on it Cedric wished he could go back in time and shake himself roughly by the shoulders.

It was because of his previous idiocy that he felt so at a loss in Orube’s presence. What was he to say to her now? All conversational avenues regarding the past could only lead to painful memories. And any topic regarding the present or future would seem too light, too trivial for either of them to enjoy while the weight of unanswered questions pressed at their backs. Of course, to bring up _those_ questions would be even more unbearable. If he asked a question that presumed too much commonality, if he uncovered even a minor difference in their respective desires, Cedric felt sure that he would crumble before her.

As he walked up to her doorstep, the now-familiar anxiety rose within him again, and Cedric wondered how many more times he would have to endure the sensation before growing accustomed to Orube’s presence, or if he ever would overcome the sensation at all.

He knocked at the door twice, and heard footsteps approaching. Orube swung the door open with a slightly theatrical flare, and beamed at him. She was wearing an apron over her sweater and jeans.

“Come in,” she said.

“Thank you,” said Cedric.

The interior of the house was decorated in fine, if somewhat old-fashioned Earthling taste. As Cedric took off his shoes, he took in the leather armchairs and crocheted doilies with mild surprise, again thinking that it was not the kind of house that suited Orube. If anything, it reminded him strangely of the ornate decor of his own bookshop. There was a peculiar savory scent wafting through the air in the entrance hall that compounded Cedric’s feeling of incongruity. It was certainly like nothing that he had smelled on Metamoor, yet he did not think that it was Earth cuisine either. Orube, who had shut the door behind them, came up beside him.

“What do you think?” she said. “I’m making a traditional dish from Basiliade.”

“Ah,” said Cedric, “Is that it? I thought it was a little difficult to place.”

“I’ve been practicing recreating Basiliade recipes using Earth ingredients. It’s a good challenge,” she said. “I’ve completely given up on using Earth recipes; they never turn out like in the pictures.” She looked a little disheveled, perhaps from having been in the kitchen, but her face was disconcertingly cheerful. “Do you want to take your coat off?” she asked. “Come in, there’s a coat hanger in that closet.”

Cedric followed her and slipped his coat over the hanger. He was struck by a sudden curiosity.

“How did you come to know when my lunch break is?” he asked.

Orube shrugged. “Isn’t that when most lunch breaks are?”

“A lucky guess then.”

“I could have found out if I wanted to,” she said, “but I’m not _that_ desperate. I just didn’t want you to ignore my invitation.”

Cedric felt as though this were an indirect insult to his character. “I wasn’t going to ignore it,” he said. “It’s not my fault if I can’t type as quickly as you.”

“I’ve gotten fast at typing,” Orube smiled. “In the beginning I couldn’t even work a landline, but Taranee finally got fed up and made me take a computer class…”

Both of them realized this lapse at the same moment. It was the first time that either of them had mentioned the guardians.

“How _are_ the girls,” asked Cedric with a careful lightness.

“They’re hardly girls anymore,” Orube said. “They’re in college now. On a mission at the moment, actually.”

Her eyes seemed to be searching him again. She might have been trying to gauge his feelings, but Cedric himself was unsure of how he felt. It had been so long since he had thought of the guardians. Hearing one of their names again brought a bad taste to his mouth, but he was not sure if this was guilt, or resentment, or annoyance, or all of these at once.

“You don’t work with them anymore?” he asked.

“I came back to Earth as a friend,” she said. “Not as a teammate. Besides, they don’t need me anymore. They’ve gotten themselves into deeper problems than I care to deal with, and made enemies that I wouldn’t know how to face. Sometimes I feel so old.” She looked up at Cedric with a half smile, but Cedric could not smile back at her. He watched her face falter, and turn sober, and he read in her eyes something timid and sorrowful. It was as though it were the first time they were truly seeing each other.

Orube took a step towards him, and Cedric’s heart at once began to beat quickly, but she then stopped. She sniffed. Immediately, Cedric also smelled what she had detected. The strange savory scent, that had been growing incrementally more pungent since Cedric’s arrival, was now mingling with the smell of smoke.

“Dammit!” cried Orube, as she rushed to the kitchen.

Cedric followed after her, where the smoke was thicker than in the hall, and arrived just in time to have his ears assaulted by the hysterical screaming of the smoke detector.

“I know, I know!” Orube was shouting at the disk affixed to the ceiling. “Be silent, you ignoble contraption!”

Cedric watched Orube fan smoke away from the detector, and he maneuvered past her to turn off the flame on the stove. Then, while Orube opened the window in the kitchen, he went to the living room to open another window. The fire alarm stopped screaming.

“Thank you,” Orube said.

“Not at all,” Cedric replied.

“I thought I had gotten _past_ that part,” she said.

“What part?”

“The part where I burn everything I try to cook. I don’t know what we’re going to eat now. I have…” She opened her cupboards. “Rice… and dried apricots. And these almonds. I have this ‘Xtreme Energy’ bar too, if you like Earth protein bars. Are you hungry? We can order pizza or something.”

Orube’s manner was slightly agitated, and Cedric wondered if this meeting was making her nervous as well. Such a thought was strange to him.

“I think apricots and almonds are fine,” he said.

“Are you sure?”

“Yes. I’m not very hungry.”

He glanced at the blackened mess in the frying pan, and smiled.

“Though I would have liked to try this Basilidian dish of yours.”

“You can try it next time,” Orube replied.

“All right then, next time.”

Orube poured the almonds and the dried apricots into a large porcelain dish, carried the dish into the living room, and set it on the coffee table.

“Please sit down,” she said, gesturing towards the sofa.

Cedric sat down on the red cushion. Instead of taking the empty armchair, Orube sat beside him. He remarked with a mixture of discomfort and satisfaction that she was close enough that he could smell the scent of soap from her skin. There was an uncomfortable pause. Cedric glanced at Orube, and saw that she was staring hard in front of her with a frown.

“I think there’s a lot we have to talk about,” she said after a moment. “And I don’t intend to waste time talking about things that don’t actually interest either of us. The fact that you are here is already incredible, so I’m not going to chitchat with you about the weather. I want to know where we stand.”

“Yes,” Cedric said, folding his hands in his lap. “I feel the same way.”

“I don’t know why you agreed to come over,” she said, “Or why you agreed to meet me in the first place. But I’m here because I love you. I’ve been in love with you for five years, and honestly I don’t think I’m going to get over you.” She swallowed. “I’ve tried.”

She turned her eyes to him and fixed him with her bright gaze. “I want to know how you feel,” she said in disarming simplicity.

Cedric took a deep breath and tried to find his words. He had not prepared himself for this.

“I think that I... yes. Of course I’m not human, so I don’t know to what extent it can be said of me, but I imagine that what I feel is likely the same as... what you described.”

Orube was still staring at him.

“So you love me.”

“...Yes.”

“Romantically.”

“Well, yes.”

“In the way that humans love each other.”

This accusation perturbed Cedric.

“I… I don’t know!” he said angrily. “I have never understood humans and I never will. To think of someone incessantly, every day and every night, to be fixated on someone whom one has known for less than a year, it’s not normal! It’s not natural! I don’t know how humans can find such a feeling beautiful!”

“Yeah,” Orube said, “Me neither.” She bit her lip. “Do you remember when you told me that love was like an infection?”

“Yes,” he said.

“At the time, I still had hope for you. I had seen you change a little and I was hoping you would change more. I was already fairly sure by that time that I had fallen in love with you, but I was too distracted by the guardians’ struggle to notice how much _I_ had changed. It was only after that I realized I would never be the same again, no matter what I did. And then I thought that you were right, that it really is an infection.”

“It’s a ridiculous emotion,” Cedric said.

“Isn’t it?” Orube smiled. “You can only be happy with one person. And if they’re gone, you feel like you’re empty. Like you don’t belong anywhere anymore.”

Cedric sensed this was his chance to ask the question he had wanted to know for years.

“Do you think that you could be happy with me?” he asked.

“Maybe,” Orube said. “Do you think you would be happy living with me?”

“Perhaps.”

But as he said this, Cedric knew that he _would_ be happy. He would be deeply happy, probably happier than he had ever been his entire life. Living with Orube would be like having a garden of his own; a sweet place that nothing could touch.

“This world is not my home,” he said. “But I came back here because Metamoor is not my home either. I lost my home a long time ago, before you ever met me. So coming to Earth was not a rejection of my past, but an acceptance of it. The person I have become is no one. If you decided to live with me, you wouldn’t be living with a normal person who has lived in any consistent way.”

“I know that,” Orube said. “I’ve never had any delusions about you being a normal person. I think that was what attracted me to you in the first place.”

She grabbed some almonds from the bowl, and crunched on them thoughtfully.

“Everything that you did was like some kind of show. Some of it was for my benefit, but when I tried to look behind the curtain, it was like even you didn’t know what was actually inside you.”

Cedric laughed uncomfortably. “You saw that even then?”

“Well sure,” she said. “I’ve been trained to be observant. I’ve never been wrong about somebody before. The only reason I messed up with you was because of my own damn feelings.”

“I don’t think you can simply blame it all on feelings as though it had nothing to do with you,” Cedric said, grinning.

“I’m not saying it had nothing to do with me. I _never_ said I would not take responsibility for my actions.”

She looked at him very seriously.

“When I say that I love you, I mean that I love the person you are now. And I’m prepared to deal with things that are unpleasant or difficult, because that’s still better than never seeing you again. That’s the only chance I ever wanted; the chance to get to know you.”

“And if you find you don’t like me?”

“Then it wouldn’t be anything new. I’ve already hated you. I still loved you while I hated you.”

“I knew I could count on you to be honest with me,” he said with a faint smile.

“So,” she said. “Will you try it?”

“Try what?”

“Will you try living with me?”

Cedric watched Orube’s fingers tap against her thigh silently.

“I admit that I didn’t expect to be asked this kind of question so early on,” he said. “But there is no other answer I can give you than ‘yes’.”

Orube stared into his eyes again with that expression he could not name. For all its fierceness it was not anger. She was seeking him; all of her power was burning in her eyes, reaching out to him.

Slowly, without taking her eyes off of his, she moved herself closer to him on the couch. Cedric’s heart was beating wildly. He could feel her body heat against his legs. Then she leaned forward and kissed his lips, and Cedric’s thoughts disappeared completely. He felt warm, as though warmth were glowing out from him, and the sensation in his chest was neither joy nor sadness, but something more potent and insistent, beating within him. He leaned into her and moved his hand to her cheek, which was soft and warm.

_Orube._

He drew back slightly, then kissed her again.

_Orube._

She reached her hand out to touch his hair, and this time when she drew out of the kiss she put both arms around him and held him to her, nestling her face into his shoulder. They stayed in this position, feeling each other’s breathing. Very softly, Cedric stroked her back.

“I didn’t think I would ever get to do this,” she said at length, her voice muffled, and kissed his neck. “I love you so much.”

Cedric tried to think of something to say, but it was too much, and none of it could be put into words. So instead he squeezed her closer to him and breathed in her scent. And the minutes passed wordlessly, with the orange lamplight shining down on them and the silence of the large house surrounding them like thick down.

 _Maybe it is possible,_ Cedric thought. _Maybe happiness like this is possible for me_. He did not want to go back home.


	7. Seven

Cedric was sitting on the floor reading a book that his employer had given to him. Behind him was Orube, sitting on the couch with her feet tucked under her. He could hear the scratching of her pencil as she steadily wrote something out on paper. It was Saturday afternoon. They had been living together for eight days.

“I think we should get a Go board,” Orube said suddenly.

“A what?” Cedric said.

“It’s a strategic game.”

“Have you already grown tired of chess?”

“Of course not. I just want to try something new.”

Cedric put his book down and turned around to lean his elbows on the couch.

“If you want to try something new, why don’t you let me teach you a game from Metamoor?” he asked, looking up at her.

“I don’t know if I’d trust you to teach me fairly,” she said, smiling. “You could make up all the rules and use them to your advantage.”

“Yes, but then I would have to follow those rules as well. You could use them yourself to win against me.”

He reached out to place a hand on her knee, but she unfolded her legs and kicked at him. Laughing, he got up and sat next to her.

“Does it need a special board or something?” she asked.

“No, it’s a game played on paper.”

“Is it difficult?”

“Yes, very.”

“Good.”

She sighed, setting down her pencil and paper, and leaned against him.

“Playing games... sometimes I get bored of training and playing games. I miss the excitement of the chase, of a real battle.”

“Your work as a reporter doesn’t suffice?”

“If they sent me on more dangerous stories it would, but I think they’re reluctant to send me on any since the last incident.”

“Why, did you break into a building again?”

“ _That_ was before I had acquainted myself with Earthling laws. No, at the last incident I only twisted someone’s arm behind his back. He had tried to hit me, so I did what I thought would be natural in such a situation.”

“I could not imagine a more natural reaction.”

“Unfortunately, my boss didn’t think so. She never told me outright, but I noticed immediately that they started putting me on more mundane stories. It gets old, talking to people about tax reform and building construction. And I always have to do research on basic issues — things that humans consider common sense — to avoid attracting suspicion.”

“You stand out far too much. You have never been very good at playing the Earthling.”

“I don’t want to be an Earthling. And I can get away with being strange. They think I’m strange anyway no matter what I do. I’m not going to change my personality for them.”

“I would never want you to,” he said. “I like you better this way. A perfect alien.”

“I guess I’m fine with it too,” she said. “But I miss Basiliade’s customs. I miss people who understand me and respect me. Everyone can recognize me as a warrior back home, but here I’m only average. Eccentric, if anything. I will never be as respected here as I am on my own planet.”

These words hit Cedric with an unexpected force.

_Respect._

He recalled his own years yearning for respect, the visceral longing that had motivated all his decisions. A boy like Cedric, from a declining noble family, could not help but see the distant prince Phobos as the embodiment of ultimate power and control, everything that he himself lacked. Cutting all ties with the family he was ashamed of, he had used his precocious cleverness and transformational skills to gain first entrance to the castle, then favor within it. But the one thing he had desired above all else — recognition — had remained elusive. It had been like a mirage in front of him, beckoning him forward but never manifesting. Phobos had known just how to manipulate him, to keep him hoping in spite of himself, up until the moment they were both defeated. And even then, Cedric knew that Phobos had never once thought of him as anything other than a pawn.

“Hey.” Orube flicked at Cedric’s arm. She was looking at him concernedly.

“Sorry,” Cedric said.

“You were thinking about something sad.”

“Yes.”

“Do you miss your home?”

“Miss it? No…”

“You seemed to miss it before, in the bookshop.”

“I didn’t know what I wanted then. As I told you, I was simply… thrashing out. I chose Metamoor as my goal, but in reality I was only trying to get away from the feeling that I didn’t know what the hell I was doing.”

Orube cocked her head to one side. “I’ve always wondered… what did you actually think of me then?”

“I thought of you as an obstacle,” he said.

“The whole time?”

“No, obviously not. Of course not. I grew to like you. Very quickly.”

“Did you fear me at all?”

“No, not exactly.”

“Damn it,” Orube said with a smile. “I was trying to be intimidating.”

“Surely you don’t have to try very hard to achieve that, given your training?”

“I did with you. I knew that if you detected any weakness in me you would have seized upon it. If you found, for instance, that I had feelings for you…”

“You overestimate me. Had I known of your feelings, I would have faltered and begun to doubt myself.”

“Hmmm. Then I made a strategical error.”

“Perhaps. Though I’m beginning to think that strategy’s role in life is much smaller than I had imagined. I’m increasingly aware of the randomness of so much that happens.”

“The fact that we met, for example.”

“Yes, the fact that we met again. I suppose, strange as it may be, that I partially owe my current situation to Mr. Fitzgerald and his blundering acquisition of Midgale Archives property.”

Orube laughed. “He called me yesterday by the way,” she said. “Supposedly to ask me about the next time I wanted to use his basement, but I think he only wanted to know about you. He asked me if I ‘had seen you’ since. I told him we were living together.”

“I see…”

“He said that it was ‘likely a good decision.’”

“What? What did he mean by that?”

“He likes you. I wouldn’t be surprised if he invites us over for dinner sometime.”

Cedric frowned, and Orube began laughing again.

“Don’t make that face!” she said. “He’s not so bad once you get to know him!”

“Are you suggesting that there is depth to his character?”

Orube did not answer, and shook harder with laughter. The corners of Cedric’s mouth turned up slightly.

“Stop laughing,” he said.

“No!”

“Stop it.”

“No!”

Orube was curled over, her hair falling into her eyes, her cheeks rosy in the afternoon sun.

“Then I shall stop you myself,” Cedric said. He seized her shoulders and he drew her into a kiss that Orube willingly gave in to.

As they let go of each other, they looked into one another’s eyes for a moment.

_If I was given another chance to live, it was surely to love you,_ Cedric thought. _If there is any reason to my life, it must be that._

Orube smiled, and tilted her head back against the couch, her eyes closed.

“I’m so happy,” she said. “I feel completely ridiculous.”

“You are completely ridiculous,” Cedric said.

“Hmmm. Why don’t you teach me that game you were talking about then?” she asked. “And we will see which one of us is the ridiculous one.”

“Very well,” said Cedric. “I’ll make some tea.”

He got up off the couch and walked to the kitchen. He fetched the kettle from the cupboard and the tea from the drawer. It was only as he was filling the kettle with water that he realized that all these actions came naturally to him now. In only a week he had come to use Orube’s kitchen as naturally as he would use his own. He looked around at the dishes on racks, at the Earth cookbooks leaning against the wall; all the objects that Orube had acquired while they had not been a part of each other’s lives. There was still so little that Cedric knew of her, and there were times every day when he looked at her silhouette and saw a stranger. He felt this when she talked of her work, or when she spoke on the phone with one of her Earthling friends. The feeling came up especially whenever the guardians were mentioned, and when he remembered that they were not of the same planet, that they had never been on the same team.

But they were together, and already the house had begun to bear marks of their coexistence. There was the mug that Cedric had brought from his apartment sitting on her kitchen table, and the leftovers from the risotto they had made together in the refrigerator. There was the notepad on the counter where Cedric had written a classic poem in Metamoorian, and read it aloud to her. There was his coat hung on the back of the chair, and the sprig of lavender that Orube had slipped in its pocket. In these signs, Cedric could see their life together. They were not signs of certainty; they were signs of possibility. Whatever happened now, he had already decided that he would do whatever it would take to continue this life. If that was not enough to right the wrongs of his past, perhaps it would still be enough to make something of his future.

“Is it a game that we can play outside?” shouted Orube from the living room.

“Yes!” Cedric shouted back. “Why?”

“It’s too nice of a day to stay inside!” she yelled.

Cedric looked out the window at the trees’ new green leaves and the clouds moving slowly over the sky. She was absolutely right.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There you go! I have finally finished a fan fiction of the only characters I care about.
> 
> Regarding Cedric's survival after the attack in Ludmoore's book, my tentative explanation is that Cedric's mother, having realized that he had run to Phobos's castle, approached a powerful sorcerer in Meridian. She feared that her son would die at Phobos's hand, so she asked the sorcerer to place a powerful protective spell over him. To counterbalance the magic that this spell would take, the sorcerer greatly amplified the effects that Cedric's transformations had on his memory loss. So Cedric increasingly forgot his past and his family the longer he worked for Phobos. When the protective spell finally went into effect, long after Cedric's mother had expected it to be needed, Cedric was returned to the remains of his family house. His memories that had acted as a counterbalance to the protective magic were returned to him, but his family had long ago died in poverty. 
> 
> Maybe that's not a very solid explanation, but it's good enough for me.


End file.
